THE OAKS (BEE TREE BRANCH) CEMETERY, San Antonio, Pasco County, Florida

File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by Jo M. Lee, (now deceased).

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Directions: Take CR.578 (St. Joe Road), cross over I-75.  Cemetery is on the left. 

These graves are all that is visibly left of this cemetery and its anyone’s 
guess as to how many people are buried here.  Varied accounts give the numbers
‘from 20- 25’, to ‘about 80 or 90’, depending on who you talk to. 

This cemetery is on private property, about 150 ft. off the road among a stand
of oak trees.  The fence that once separated it from the pasture land surrounding
it has long since rusted away and sadly, the remaining graves have sustained a lot
of damage . . . both from cattle and people that have no respect for the dead.

On the day I took this survey in 1992, I apparently surprised a person or persons
engaged in desecrating a grave.  As I made my way, I heard a voice, the sound of 
metal striking stone and then the sounds of someone running.  I found a shovel 
and partially excavated grave. Later, when I reported the incident, I was told 
"on a previous occasion, a county employee had been dispatched to rebury an 
unearthed coffin."

JACKSON, Johnnie, b. Mar 1 1917 d. Nov 23 1961, "PFC. CO B  FLA. 392 ENGS. WWII"
JENKINS, Paralee, (This looks as if it may be the grave of a child. All that remains is a Coleman Ferguson Funeral Home marker with the name but no dates and a  9 or 10" metal crucifix that had been pressed into the wet cement slab covering the grave. The slab has been broken into small pieces.)

MAHONE, Catherine, b. unknown d. Jul 8 1944, (Of the four graves I found, this grave has been desecrated twice.)

WASHINGTON, Rudolph, b. May 8 1900 d. Jul 22 1971, "PVT 354 FLA D RMT SQ WW"